Ron Bloom, the White House adviser on manufacturing and architect of the auto bailout, is leaving the administration this month, the White House announced Tuesday.

President Barack Obama expressed gratitude to Bloom in a statement, saying his “leadership and expertise has helped us put America’s automakers back on the road to recovery, launch new partnerships to make our manufacturers more competitive and set aggressive fuel economy standards that will save consumers and businesses money at the pump.”

Bloom, 56, added in that statement that he is “confident in this administration’s ability to build on these accomplishments and continue our efforts to revitalize the manufacturing sector.”

Many in Washington with manufacturing ties saw Bloom as a key voice for industry in an administration whose economic policies largely came from aides with academic backgrounds, said Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

“Ron’s voice will be sorely missed in this administration,” Paul said. “He had a deep knowledge base of all the elements that contribute to a successful manufacturing base in this country: labor, business, Wall Street. I don’t think he’s replaceable.”

The former investment banker became a negotiator for the United Steelworkers union before turning to government service.

Bloom joined the administration in February 2009 as the senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the president’s task force on the automotive industry. In that role, he served as the deputy to “car czar” Steve Rattner in the bankruptcy restructurings of General Motors and Chrysler.

When Rattner left the government in the summer of 2009, Bloom succeeded him as the car czar. President Barack Obama appointed Bloom as his senior counselor for manufacturing policy on Labor Day, 2009, and Bloom became assistant to the president in January 2011.

Obama reached out to the manufacturers in Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania in June, announcing partnerships between business and academia to revive American factories.

Bloom described the policy as a way for the government to support private innovation. Evoking China, he said the approach that would “let the great thousand flowers bloom in America.”